If We Lived There, Would We Be Home By Now?

I just heard on the radio that, while the Republicans and Democrats duke it out in these days before the impending fall over the Fiscal Cliff, Corporate America is “clamoring for compromise.”  Oh, good ol’ Corporate America!

Not being one who feels in a position to help with this particular national problem, I’m nonetheless doing a little clamoring for compromise of my own these days. It’s kind of private, actually, since it involves one part of me debating with another part of me about something completely domestic in nature; but I’ll let you in on it, hoping that maybe you’ll recognize the experience.

How do you really know when you’ve found the right sport or the right instrument or the right school or the right job or the right, oh, I don’t know….house? And how much do you hold out for what you really want, for what will help your heart sing; how much do you push just to settle and be reasonably satisfied?   I agree with Dorothy:  “There’s no place like home.”  I’m just not sure that clicking my heels three times will take me to the spot.

A few days ago, at the end of an afternoon that included a whole lot of time in the car and a few house tours, a realtor asked me, “What exactly are you looking for?”  It was a reasonable question, of course.  I replied, without really even having to think, “I’m looking for a place that feels like home.”

By this time in our search, I can definitely list features that are most important to me: a house with plenty of light, one big open room downstairs for gatherings, enough space upstairs for older kids – when they come– and the occasional friends we hope will visit, and an outdoors that will be hospitable for dogs and maybe other kinds of four-legged animals, too.  Bonus feature: a nearby pond for swimming and skating.  And the likelihood of good neighbors down the road as well as a place to find a gallon of milk less than twenty minutes away.  Am I asking for too much?

My husband, bless his heart, is developing some patience about my criteria.  He’s also pretty occupied learning the ropes in his new position.  But it’s clear we need to re-gain our life with a good patch of common ground – literally.

The thing is, I’m choosing a place that needs to hold promise for fulfilling some wishes about how we want the future to unfold.  As soon as I say that, though, I realize how luxurious it sounds.  A house, of course, is basically just shelter from the storm – or not even, depending on how bad the storm is.   (The 12-12-12 rock concert to raise funds for Sandy relief is playing on TV as I write). Going through this search process, I’m fully aware that people all around the globe are not able to do anything like what I’m doing:  choosing a house — with various rooms, running water and appliances — by any kind of extra criteria at all.

In the award winning book and now hit movie, Life of Pi, the main character, a 16 year old boy, survives on a lifeboat for an unbelievably long time.  He also has to find a way to co-exist with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.  Indeed, to distance himself from the tiger, he rigs up a raft that is attached to the lifeboat—a kind of (not)home away from (not)home.  Concentrating on staying alive keeps him fully occupied:  “I had to improve the raft.  At present it was seaworthy, but hardly habitable.  I would have to make it fit for living in until I could move to my permanent quarters on the lifeboat.” The whole story is more in the realm of fantasy than reality, but still it gets you thinking about what it means to get down to basics, perhaps even to thrive despite terrible conditions, wherever you are.

I haven’t read the book Room yet, but I understand that it’s a five year old boy’s extraordinary story of life with his mother within the confines of a 11 x 11 room.   Against a backdrop of her own horrible experience, she is able to create a kind of home for her child here.  She does what needs to be done to survive, driven by determination and love.  The actual physical environment she’s in barely even matters.

Even without considering the plight of courageous people like this who are dealing with dire circumstances, I’ve got it easy, that’s for sure.  As I continue to drive around dirt roads in New Hampshire, seeking a place that feels right, I think I’ll just let one of my favorite Beatles songs, “Two of Us,” from the Let It Be album, guide me:  “You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead…On our way back home…We’re on our way home…We’re goin’ home.”